In a near-complete victory, James Cleaveland was found not guilty of “resisting arrest” and the jury was deadlocked 6-6 on his “disorderly conduct” charge this week. Here’s the full video of his trial and the pretrial motions:
Yesterday, Free Keene broke the news of the nearly-ideal verdict in the James Cleaveland trial for recording cops. Today, mainstream media has picked up the story as well. Thanks to Union Leader reporter Meghan Pierce for actually attending a portion of the trial and filing multiple pieces throughout the week about it.
At one point, Pierce was illegally locked out of the courtroom, as Cheshire superior court has a strange policy that locks the doors during opening and closing statements. Defense attorney Paul Garrity objected to both closings on constitutional grounds, as it should be a public trial. Judge John C Kissinger, who in many cases comes across as a relatively fair judge, refused to budge on his policy and kept the doors locked.
In other media news, the Keene Sentinel published a small report. The full seven-hour trial video is encoding as I write this and should be up hopefully sometime tomorrow. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest.
While other states are arresting jury nullification activists, New Hampshire allows flyering jurors, AND allows nullification to be explicitly named, described, and advocated for in court, as attorney Paul Garrity proves in the last part of his closing argument in the trial of James Cleaveland for recording video of state police:
If you love liberty and want to work towards making more of it happen, why not do it in the best place for it? New Hampshire is already more free than other places and there are thousands of libertarians and voluntarists, many of whom love jury nullification, that are moving there as part of the Free State Project. Why not join us and help more liberty happen, sooner?
Yesterday the trial of Free Keene blogger James Cleaveland for recording police wrapped up with an excellent closing argument by defense attorney Paul Garrity (video still to come) advocating jury nullification. The jury was sent to deliberate and could not reach a verdict by the close of court. This morning, the jury was back to deliberating at 9am – the fact that it’s taking this long could be a good sign for James.
Activists were out front of the court this morning for the fourth day in a row holding signs and offering jury nullification information from NHJury.com. Yesterday, Union Leader reporter Meghan Pierce showed up to cover the trial. Here’s her report, published in today’s Union Leader.
Any developments in the case will be tweeted by Darryl W Perry here. Stay tuned for the latest – will the jury acquit our hero?
Here’s a pic from this morning’s outreach:
Jury Outreach Activists @ Cheshire Superior Court 2015-12-17
On December 14, 2015 Judge Brian T. Tucker of the Strafford Superior Court denied the injunction brought by the NH Department of Education and Attorney General against the Croydon School Board. The Department of Education and Attorney General claimed that four Croydon students would be irreparably harmed if allowed to remain at the Newport Montessori School as part of the town’s school choice program.
The website School Choice for New Hampshire reports, “The final hearing of Croydon vs the NH DOE is scheduled for January 13, 2016.” Adding, “You can subscribe to our events page so you receive notification as soon as it is posted.”
The order from Judge Tucker is available on the NH School Choice website.
Darryl W Perry is tweeting live from the trial of Free Keene blogger James Cleaveland, happening today and possibly tomorrow (Wed) in Keene at Cheshire superior court:
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